


Best Laid Plans

by Suaine



Category: Dark Matter (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 13:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13055253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suaine/pseuds/Suaine
Summary: Just another day in the life of Three, accidentally in the business of saving the universe.





	Best Laid Plans

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Themisto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themisto/gifts).



The air around Three was thick and heavy with noise, pregnant with scents that made his stomach turn. He pushed his back further against the station wall and pulled his tattered hood over his eyes. His fingers found the hilt of his knife, not nearly enough to reassure him. He missed his guns. He missed the blessed ignorance he'd had just after waking up on the Raza.

Not that things had been easy. He could not remember the time when his life had been easy, before he was old enough to understand how the universe worked, before he fell in love and lost her to his own greed. Five had told him enough to know that he had been the odd one out, the happy child with parents who cared about him.

Across the crowded plaza, a heavily armed guard pushed someone so hard they fell back and crashed into a stall selling dried meats of questionable origins. Outraged cries and clattering filled the space between him and the commotion. He slipped away from the wall and headed to the central intersection connecting all the spikes of the spinning space wheel of death. Guards ran past him, yelling into their communicators in a language he'd never bother to learn, not even if he had an infinite number of days and nothing better to do.

The android's voice popped into his mind, only slightly unwelcome. “The way is clear up to the intersection.” She hesitated a moment. “Good luck, Three.”

Three rolled his eyes. His plan would have had them shooting their way through and die like rats, but at least he would feel like he knew what he was doing. This complicated heist situation made him a cog in a machine, and there was nothing he hated more than that feeling. He figured that was the reason Marcus Boone became an anti-corporate criminal in the first place – the freedom to die on his own terms, not live as a resource to be devoured by the machine.

The intersection was full of station personnel scrambling and scuttling, as if they had poked an ant hill with a big stick. Three couldn't help but smile. These creatures needed a bit of stirring. In their home dimension the aliens were frankly nowhere near as scary as they had first appeared, nor as powerful. They were just butt-ugly people with a thirst for war. Humans had grown into a fungus that spread out of their world and through the entire galaxy based simply on their own thirst. Nothing these aliens had or were or made was unknowable.

His target was nowhere to be seen and Three cursed under his breath. He tapped his communicator. “If you can hear me, Two, I think we're fucked. The doctor isn't here.”

There was no answer. Two was probably still carving a path of destruction through the market. Or maybe she was dead and none of this would matter. He looked back at the way he'd come. Faith had never been a huge part of his life, not before and not when he became part of this weird little criminal family.

He pushed into the fray, hood low, body curled tightly into himself. If he couldn't find the doctor they were all fucked beyond their wildest dreams.

Someone bumped into him. Three whirled around, his knife already resting where the soft vulnerable part of the alien anatomy was, the small sliver of skin that connected two pieces of armored carapace. It wasn't one of the creatures though, it was Four or Ryo or whatever he was these days. Three sighed and pushed the knife a little further, just enough to hurt but not enough to draw blood. The hot coppery scent was like a homing beacon to these aliens.

“You're not a part of this,” Three snarled, as Ryo pushed the knife aside.

Ryo got right into his face and grinned. Wasn't that long ago that Three was excited by that expression, knowing that Four would have his back. “We are all a part of this. It's stupid not making use of me and you know it.” Ryo's breath was hot on Three's face. If they kept this up, someone was going to notice that they were not really native to this hive.

“I don't need your help,” Three said.

Ryo put his hand on his face and pushed his head to the side. The gesture was weirdly gentle. “Just look.”

For sure, the doctor was there, huddled in a corner and still standing out starkly among the green and blue and purple of the aliens, with his human skin and tall frame. Three tensed, suddenly unsure how to proceed. Getting to the doctor was the easy part. Now they had to save him. “Alright, alright. Come on.”

He should feel uneasy surrounded by monsters, with a traitor behind him, but Four and Ryo had never been all that different, they'd just had different priorities. Now that he had lost his empire, Ryo and Four had nothing left but the Raza and his vengeance.

The doctor looked less scared than he probably should, but then he didn't appear to be chained or otherwise harmed. In fact, he didn't have the look of a hostage at all. More like a collaborator. More like someone who would get them all killed in moments.

Three stopped thirty feet away from the man who had the power to save the universe and chose to ally himself with darkness. What a shit heel. “Okay,” he said quietly, Ryo pressed close. The heat of their bodies alone could give them away if any of the creatures came too close. “How much do you trust me?”

Ryo snorted. “About as far as I can throw one of these insects.” For all that they were smaller than humans, the aliens weighed three or four times as much, their natural body armor grown from dense metal. They clanged and clattered as they moved.

Three grinned. “Listen, I don't think that guy is going to come with us if we ask nicely.”

Ryo sighed. “So you'd rather we don't ask at all.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Three could feel the moment Ryo became Four again. He could see the smile in his head, the little nod he could hear with the rustling of their cloaks. “I love a good plan.”

Their communicators crackled. Four's head was so close to his that Three could hear a slight echo from the one in Four's ear. Where the hell he'd gotten one, Three couldn't imagine. Or maybe he could. Five always loved redemption stories and adopting lost causes – she'd probably given it to him.

“This is Six, we have secured the launch bay on level three. Hurry up and let's get out of here.”

“This is Two, I'm clear and heading your way.”

Three tapped his communicator. “This is Three, I've got the target in sight. Four is with me. ETA in five minutes. Wait for us.”

He launched himself at the doctor, knowing that Four would be there. The aliens didn't know it yet, but the crew of the Raza was back and they had nothing that could stand against them.


End file.
